‘I do think of you as a brother, Jack, and it does not matter if you visited us or not, what is important is that you have come here now especially for mother’s funeral. That means so much to me.’
They held each other tightly for a few moments and then moved apart. Swann smiled at her as he said, ‘So, when am I to meet this beau of yours?’
‘Tomorrow,’ replied Mary, harmonious relations now restored. ‘He will be at the service. I know you will find him most agreeable Jack. I know it.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Swann had kept a journal since the age of thirteen, when the Gardiners had given him an elaborately bound volume for his birthday. He had written in it religiously every day and quickly filled it up, the present one being the forty-eighth; his copious entries necessitating a new journal each five or six months.
Bath, Tuesday 18th October, 1803
It was most pleasing to be with Mary today but it pains me to think that there was disharmony between us this morning, however brief it lasted. I cannot but regret introducing the subject of her moving to London then. It was too soon. What is worse though is that she was so appreciative of my presence here. What hurt would it cause her then, to learn that it is my father’s murder which is the motivating reason behind why I have come to Bath at this time and not because of her mother’s death.
It has been twenty years since my father’s murder and nearly fifteen years since I became old enough to avenge it. And yet, after all this time, I still imagine myself in a bad dream and that one day I shall wake to find myself as a young boy once more, sitting opposite my father at the Gardiners’ kitchen table. The reality, though, is that I am alone and I, alone, have assumed responsibility to seek the justice for his death. The task has been all-consuming, but if it was not I, then who would discharge this obligation? My adoptive father undertook what he was able to but once the trail had grown cold and with other things to concern him … well, I do not blame him for bringing the matter to a close in his own mind, even if I could not within mine.
At the age of eighteen I began the quest to track down my father’s killer and like Odysseus’ wanderings through the Grecian isles in search of his homeland, these long years have seen my course set by the winds of fate that have sent me, through the promising leads they provide, in whatever direction they deem fit. It is an odyssey which has demanded immense sacrifice during these years but I have accepted this, exiling myself from family life and friendships.
And now, even my relationship with Mary is tainted with the knowledge that she is deceived by my actions in coming to Bath. But I cannot allow emotion to overcome duty. Did not Odysseus’s own son, Telemachus, conceal the truth surrounding his father from those he loved for the sake of the greater plan? And so I must continue to do likewise now I have reached my own Ithaca, for that is what I believe Bath to be. And having landed upon ‘these shores’, I must remain focussed and determined as I make my way to the ‘palace of iniquity’ in order to enact the final confrontation.
There is, however, something which troubles me. The feeling I became aware of this morning, when entering the city, has stayed with me throughout the day and remains as a bedside companion while I write this journal entry. It possesses a strange quality, carrying within it an anticipatory sense of final release and yet simultaneously auguring that which lies beyond. I have experienced this feeling before, although only ever fleetingly, and at those times it has led me to a moral questioning of my actions and to whether I act as judge or executioner? In the moment of retribution, I ponder, will divine justice be served or will it be simply the act of a man taking the old law – an eye for an eye – as his own decree? For I know that when I find Malone I will strike him down as surely as he did my father. And my justification to this questioning is that I truly believe his sentence was passed at the fatal moment he stabbed my father on that murderous night. And so, having already been judged, it is only for me to carry out his rightful punishment.
With the feeling remaining for so long this time, however, I have been able to reflect on it more objectively and I can now see it for what it is; not a moral question on my actions but an empirical one, in so much as when this deed is accomplished, what is left? What awaits me: a place devoid of meaning? Is that why I have never before let Bath as a possible haven for him enter my mind all this time, as the thought of finally ending what has consumed me all these years would leave me not knowing what to do next. I could not envisage staying in Bath, yet do I remain in London now that I have tracked him down. Thinking back over these last fifteen years I realise that every case I have undertaken, except perhaps one, can all be linked to this quest in one way or another. So what will my life become now that the end has possibly come?
Am I being too hasty in my belief though, that after all these years of searching, he is in the city? I cannot feel his presence, as I know I will when the time comes, for I have felt it once before. It was when I was sixteen years of age and attending a large fair on the outskirts of London. As I stood in a crowd watching a magician, I suddenly felt a presence nearby. On turning, I saw him for a brief moment, at least the back of him. By the time I had raised the alarm he was gone. Perhaps though, the reason I cannot feel his presence is because he is already dead? Have the details of that conversation overheard in London already played themselves out here? And if this is the case, I wonder how I will feel knowing another hand has extinguished his life and fulfilled what I believed to have been my destiny.
Whether I can feel Malone’s presence or not I know that this feeling augurs an ending of my quest one way or another, but whatever lies beyond is for another time and perhaps a future journal entry. So I will attend the funeral tomorrow (or rather today, as I observe the clock has reached midnight) and while there, create the opportunity to converse with Fitzpatrick to discover what he knows about Malone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The boy sat on the bed he had shared with his father. He had not shed any tears at the funeral earlier that morning; these would come later, if at all. He had never seen his father cry and however hard it might be not to now, he wanted to follow his example. ‘Leave that to the other sex,’ his father had once joked. The loss hurt so much though that he felt numb from it and all he could do was sit and stare at the wooden chair across the room, on which a few of his father’s clothes lay. He wanted to go over there and hold the clothes, to feel their familiar texture and his father’s warmth once more. But he did not.
The boy did not know how long it had been there but he now became aware of something in his hands. As he continued to gaze at the chair across from him, he felt the heaviness and shape of the object and realised it was a book. It was the one he had taken off the bedside table when he first entered the room at the top of the house. The book was the latest that his father had been allowed to borrow from Mr Gardiner’s library and which the boy and his father had taken turns to read aloud each evening. The boy ran his fingers down the book’s spine and over the raised lettering that spelt out the title and author. The book was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. It was a story about a man shipwrecked on an island far away, but who survived on it through his resourcefulness. They had reached a section, however, where Crusoe had become sick with bad dreams and in his sickness remembered his father. He had wondered whether his present situation was a ‘just punishment for his sin’; his sin being that of going against his father’s wishes and setting sail on the adventure which led to him being marooned on ‘this island of despair’, as Crusoe had called it.
The boy’s thoughts turned to his own act of disobedience. He had gone against his father’s wishes, lifting the cups after being told not to, and now wondered whether his father being taken from him was his ‘just punishment’. If only he had not lifted those cups perhaps things would have been different, or else if he had actually tried to do something other than merely watching. Could he have done anything to change things that night? The images which had haunted his dreams ever since now invade
d his waking state. This time, however, he saw his father receive the fatal blow and Malone, with evil intent still in his eyes, turning after toward the boy himself. But in that moment, the boy was already getting to his feet and by the time Malone was at the front door of the Gardiners’ property, looking up and down the street for him, he had already hidden himself well enough in the neighbouring hedgerow to escape being found. The boy had then stayed there until he saw Malone and his scarred accomplice make their way down the street; the wounded man sobbing and racked with pain.
There was a knock on the bedroom door but the boy was too preoccupied in his thoughts to respond. The door opened and Mrs Hunter, the Gardiners’ nanny, stood at the entrance. She saw the solitary figure on the bed and her heart went out to him, but she knew there was nothing she could do to comfort the boy over the loss of his father.
Mr Swann had been highly regarded both by the Gardiner family and the other members of staff that worked for them. He had been in the Gardiners’ service for fifteen years and during the first three of those years had his wife beside him. When she died, the Gardiners were initially against Mr Swann’s plan of raising the newborn child himself, but when they saw how determined he was, they relented and helped all they could. A wet nurse had been hired and after the child was weaned, they had allowed the female staff in the household to take turns looking after the boy when Mr Swann was on duty. He had never forgotten their kindness and so Mrs Hunter was not surprised at the courageous act which had cost him his life.
There had been some debate as to whether the boy should attend the funeral but in the end it was decided he should and so had gone with Mr Gardiner and the male servants of the household. It obviously had been too much for him though, as he had slipped away from the men as soon as they had returned to the house. It was then that Mrs Hunter had been dispatched to find the boy and bring him back downstairs.
Mrs Hunter saw the boy holding a book. Mr Swann had taught himself to read and write and had been doing the same with the boy. He had adored his son and would always have such a look of contentment when talking about him. At least the boy’s future was now set.
‘Jack, they are waiting for you downstairs.’
Mrs Hunter went over to the boy and gently took his hand. He did not resist and accompanied her downstairs to the first floor of the house. They stopped at the two large drawing room doors and Mrs Hunter knocked reverentially.
‘I have the boy here, sir, madam, as you requested,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hunter, please bring him in,’ replied Mrs Gardiner.
Mrs Hunter brought the boy into the room, to where Mr and Mrs Gardiner stood waiting, along with their four-year-old daughter, Mary.
‘Jack, do you know why you are here?’ asked Mr Gardiner, as he beckoned the boy closer toward him.
The boy shook his head.
‘Well, in appreciation of your father’s loyalty to this family, may God rest his soul, and as you have no living relatives that we know of, we are to adopt you.’
‘You will now be part of our family, Jack,’ said Mrs Gardiner. ‘It means that Mr Gardiner and I are to be your guardians and Mary will be your sister.’
As Mrs Gardiner spoke, the girl moved closer to the boy and put her hand into his, holding it tight.
Mrs Gardiner had been true to her word and until her dying day had treated the boy as her own son. It was perhaps right then that Swann was at her funeral, whatever the original intention for his coming to Bath had been.
As he stood by the graveside, Swann now reciprocated his sister’s childhood gesture and moved his right hand into a position where she could take it. She did so and squeezed his hand hard, as she fought to hold back her tears.
As the service neared its close, a gentleman arrived at the cemetery entrance. This was Edmund Lockhart. He made his way prudently through the gate and stood behind a clump of bushes for a few moments, assessing the situation. After deciding his course of action, Lockhart crossed a small path and discreetly took a place at the back of the mourners.
If one wished to be thoroughly pedantic, and there were plenty amongst Bath’s social echelons that would wish to be so, then it could be held that the gentleman was inappropriately dressed for the funeral; the grey clothes he was so attired in being a colour normally reserved for the later period of half-mourning. In his defence though, he had only this very hour returned to Bath from his business trip and had no opportunity to change his apparel. He was embarrassingly late but would hopefully still be able to console Mary. And besides, no one had seen him enter, so he could have arrived at any time after the start of the service and merely choose not to interrupt proceedings, especially as he could see there was already a gentleman beside her, who he surmised to be the brother arrived from London.
Lockhart had been surprised when Mary had first mentioned she was going to attend the funeral and it had briefly crossed his mind to persuade her otherwise. On realising her mind was made up though, he decided instead to do all he could to support her. It was, after all, this spiritedness which had first attracted him to her. He was, however, late and there was no way around this fact. The coach he was travelling back to Bath in had broken a wheel and it had taken an inordinate amount of time to fix. Once he reached his destination, he had hailed a fast gig and come straight to the church on the outskirts of the city.
The service finished and the mourners began to offer their condolences to both Mary and Swann. Lockhart slowly moved forward to where they stood. As soon as she saw him he raised his arms in an apologetic manner.
‘My dear Mary, my lateness is unforgivable,’ Lockhart said, ‘but my business in London detained me longer than I had expected.’
‘Do not concern yourself Edmund, as it is good to see you here. Now, let me introduce you to my brother,’ she said, as Swann finished talking to Fitzpatrick nearby. ‘Jack, I wish you to meet someone.’
As Swann turned to be introduced to Lockhart, they instantly recognised the other as travelling companions on the Royal Mail coach the previous day.
CHAPTER NINE
Wicks looked out from the window at the top of the warehouse and surveyed his city. From where the building stood, on the Bristol Road, he could look back across the river and see the entire length of Avon Street and the surrounding district, known locally as ‘the hate’. This was where Wicks had been born thirty years earlier and even at that time it had acquired the reputation for being the most notorious area in the city. His gaze now moved upwards, to the roofs and upper floors of the houses of the well-to-do that climbed in rows up the sides of the encompassing hills. Then finally, further up the slopes, to the crescents and mansions within which the real wealth of the city waited to be plundered.
It had taken Wicks eighteen months to attain this position of power; eighteen months since he had docked at the port in Bristol and returned to the city of his birth. The first thing he had done on his arrival in Bath was seek revenge on the thief-taker who had set him up and got him transported to Botany Bay ten years earlier. Wicks was prepared to take that length of time again to track the man down, but in the end found him in the first place he had looked; the pub in Walcot Street that the man had been known to haunt all those years before. The city was strange that way, Wicks thought; as much as things constantly changed, you could leave it for a decade, as he had done, and yet still find things the same on coming back.
The man who had convinced Wicks to rob a house, then arrested him on his way out in order to collect a reward, had not recognised Wicks when he entered The Bell. He had not recognised him either, when Wicks had sat next to him and engaged him in conversation. It was only in the moment before Wicks killed the corrupt thief-taker did he tell him who he was. After the two men had their fill of ale, they both staggered out and, at Wicks’ suggestion, headed back to the centre along the river. But Wicks was merely acting and as his companion stopped to relieve himself, he readied himself for the kill. As the man turned back, Wicks looked hi
m in the eyes and said, ‘Remember me?’ There was the briefest moment of recognition on the part of the thief-taker before Wicks stabbed him through the heart and the body fell backwards into the water. Wicks watched as it was carried away downstream, where it would be discovered a week later in a state of severe decomposition.
After he had taken his revenge, Wicks joined a gang based in the Avon Street district and waited for his chance. It came swiftly. Three months later, the leader of the gang had been murdered by Malone, after trying to seize power from him. Through a combination of force and quick wits, Wicks assumed control of the Avon Street gang and in a short space of time had made it the most feared and powerful in the city, after Malone’s. He always stayed on the right side of the crime boss; not out of fear, but in order to bide his time. He had paid him to be allowed to operate his rackets in ‘the hate’, an area Malone believed beneath him and not worth the effort of exploiting. That had been his first mistake. Whatever reputation the district held, to Wicks it was at the heart of his successful rise, a place where the toughest fighters and most adept thieves could be recruited and where valuable information regarding Malone’s operations could be gained from those who worked in the upper town but lived in the lower one.
And he maintained this control by knowing each of the men recruited to his gang inside out. He knew their strengths and their weaknesses and, when it was necessary, how to pit one against another. That was why he was going to keep Tyler where he was. Although it had been Tyler who had brought Wicks into the gang in the first place, he knew to ‘promote’ him would bring trouble. If Tyler was allowed to collect protection money from the upper town, he would become greedy and Wicks would have to make an example of him. And he did not want to lose such a good man through killing him. He had grown up with Tyler, had roamed the same streets as him, but the ten years away had changed Wicks beyond almost all recognition. Tyler had thought he recognised him but Wicks had denied it. The less people knew about you and your past the better, because in the criminal world you always had to keep alert and maintain an edge. It was a business after all. That was what Malone hadn’t realised. He had become lazy and lost touch with what was happening in the city. You had to constantly watch your back, as there would always be others prepared to take advantage if you didn’t, which is what had allowed the meeting between Wicks and Malone’s London connection to take place right under his nose.
The Regency Detective Page 4
